Jose's Sites

30 January 2014

Ok, so here are the announced numbers in as stark a way as numbers can have to deliver bad news. By the way, I pondered again and again whether I should post them. Is it tacky? Is it an invitation to unwanted attention from the IRS? Hardly. The IRS will be sorely disappointed.
My goal posting this as I've stated many times is mostly to help me confront them and may be help other artists confront theirs. Numbers have a wonderful (and horrible) way of delivering the truth.

Last year, from painting and workshops I made a total of $36,530 . Sounds good! Call the tax agents!
Not so fast. That is the gross.
After gallery and venue commissions, I only took 63% of that gross: $22,960$ . Uh-oh. That is also subject to taxation and I haven't done my taxes yet so I expect even less.
And then there are the pervasive Expenses. I am including the following categories of expenses:
Framing, Art Supplies, Entry and Membership fees and Studio rent. I am also accounting to a certain degree for some meals and gas while on painting trips. This expense list does NOT include things like rent, groceries, insurance, cell phone, etc...

So after expenses I am left with an optimistic 9K for the whole year. Not so good anymore. About 3,000 dollars below poverty level for a family of 1 actually.With the 13K I got from unemployment insurance for the year (try living on that), I've been able to cope.

The good news is that I sold of lot of artwork. The bad news is that I won't make a living selling it, at least not yet. The good news is that I can see people respond to my artwork . The bad news is that right now I am devoting all my energy to finding a job, retraining as a paralegal and taking Maya and Nuke and Photoshop classes.

On a side note: After seeing the Zorn exhibit in San Francisco through the prism of my situation, I realized that fabulous careers in art are usually made by great artists, duh, people whose amazing talent spoke for itself -first-. (Sorolla, Sargent, Zorn, they didn't need to advertise... lucky them.)
Marketing is great and necessary, it can make the difference between doing what you love and staying put in a lousy job. If a painting takes your breath away however, that's its own advertising. While I like my paintings well enough and I think I should promote them, I need to get better or win some awards or both. At least until I can spend the money on ads.

In any case, these numbers are exactly what I needed to make decisions going forward and finish the rest of my business plan. If I can't paint, life has little to offer so back to looking for a job. Oh, and here is a painting, just for kicks.